


5 times Stiles didn't let anybody in and the 1 time he did

by fangirl_from_the_bookstore



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Derek Hale Helps Stiles Stilinski, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Stiles, Implied Stiles and Derek relationship, M/M, Nightmares, Sick Stiles Stilinski, Stiles doesn't open up to people, implied sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 18:44:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20475773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_from_the_bookstore/pseuds/fangirl_from_the_bookstore
Summary: Who knew that the broodiest werewolf would make Stiles feel whole again. At least for a little while.





	5 times Stiles didn't let anybody in and the 1 time he did

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys,  
this is my first time testing out the 5+1 thingy. I understand Stiles in all these stories, it is hard letting someone in but once you find the person it feels so much better  
Have fun reading it ♥

**1**

He was running through the ghost town and sounds of howls and guns were in the air. Stiles was running for his life. It was dark and just the moon illuminated his path. Stiles noticed that he was shivering, but he didn't know why. He wanted to look for his friends, but couldn't really focus on anything else. Actually he didn't even know what he was running from. Everything was a blurr and he could hear voices echoing in the distance. And then suddenly Stiles was jerked awake with a loud gasp and found himself back in his own bedroom.

He clenched his chest to try and stop his heart from beating out of his chest. His whole room was still dimly lit and Stiles hastily got up and switched on the light. He panted and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Stiles shakily let out a breath and closed his eyes for a second. He took a few more breaths and just focused on getting his heart rate down again.

He heard sounds outside his door and then his dad quickly knocked and opened it.

“Hey, I just got home, are you okay?”, Noah said worringly and tried to hide a yawn. He was still wearing his uniform and looked dead tired.

“I am fine dad”, Stiles forced a smile on his face, “just a nightmare.”

His dad forced one in return.

“Okay”, he said and patted Stiles on the shoulder. Stiles smiled back at him and then Noah nodded and quietly closed the door. He still hated that his son had to go through something like this, but he tried his best to be there for him. He also knew that Stiles hated the constant attention though so he tried to keep his distance.

When Stiles was alone again he sighed and fell back onto his bed

“Oh god.”

He laid there for a minute, just arms and legs sprawled away. He had nightmares all the time. It was like his body was constantly in terror and his mind couldn't calm down. Sometimes it had been days without them, but then other times, especially after another fight, the nightmares wouldn't stop for a whole week. Slowly the blood stopped rushing through his ears and there was silence again. Stiles rubbed over his eyes and rolled over to check his phone. It was 2:34 AM. Stiles groaned.

“Well this is just great.”

He knew that sleep wouldn't come for a long time and so he got up and turned on his computer. He had an essay due in three weeks and decided to already start with finding good sources.

In the morning Stiles felt like crap. He hadn't really managed to fall back to sleep the entire night. As usual. When he looked in the mirror he immediately sighed. He did that a lot nowadays. It was like even his body was tired now. Stiles dragged his hands across his face and through his hair. He let out a frustrated groan and decided to hop under the shower. He didn't turn the water cold, because he himself was cold already, instead he took a nice warm shower to warm him up from inside.

His eyes were still too red to be normal and he was walking on shaky legs because he was so tired when he arrived at school, but nobody noticed. He was too good at keeping up a wall around himself. Afraid to be considered weak.

**2**

It had been another afternoon spent with research about the new threat and so it was nearly midnight when Stiles got back home. However the light in the living room was still on. Stiles opened the front door and called “Dad?”.

“In here”, he answered, but it sounded tired.

Stiles walked around the corner and saw him sitting on the sofa with pieces of paper all laying around him. Stiles knew instantaneously what that meant: They were behind bills again. His stomach twisted and he subconciously clenched his mouth shut.

His dad looked up from the paperwork and his eyes were empty. He looked exhausted, but managed a smile nonetheless.

“You coming home late, everything alright?”

“Yeah, no everything's fine. Just got lost in research”, Stiles said and paused before he spoke again.

“What is all this?”

Noah sighed.

“Nothing to worry about son, I got this covered. Why don't you go to bed?”, Noah said and smiled again.

“Okay”, Stiles swallowed hard. The Stilinski men were never good at letting people in, so he did what his dad told him and went to his room.

There however he rolled around in the bed, unable to find rest. Stiles trusted his dad, they had been at this point a few times, but his heart hurt everytime he saw him like that. He tried desperately to think of a way to help his dad. Maybe he could get a job. Start earning money. But he already knew that with his crazy life that would not be possible.

Thankfully though he found sleep after a while because he was just so exhausted from this day.

He woke up the next day and still felt the unease from yesterday. It just never felt good when your parent was worried. Because then it was clear that they were in deep trouble. When he went to the kitchen to grab breakfast he still saw the bills scattered around the table in the living room. Stiles looked away and continued making the sandwich. Suddenly he felt a terror in his bones, because what if this time they won't come out of this unharmed? What if they were gonna lose the house? Lose his home? A shudder went down Stiles' spine and he noticed that his hands were starting to shake.

Stiles quickly finished his sandwich and walked back to his room to get ready for school. He tried not to think about the bills right now and took his headphones to listen to some music. He desperately needed some distraction. But the unease never left his bones, even when his math teacher gave them insane equations to solve or when in history they did a surprise quiz. He just couldn't focus and felt sick to his stomach.

At lunch break they all sat together and Lydia talked about how easy it had been to solve the equations. Normally Stiles would make a sarcastic comment, because she was just so damn smart, but this time he just nodded and continued eating his food. Since he didn't want to talk about it he tried to engage in the conversation and cracked some jokes here and there, but he wasn't feeling like himself today. The others then started discussing their results of the history quiz, but Stiles didn't pay attention to that.

He was deep in thought and started playing with his food. He wasn't very hungry all of a sudden. His shoulders were hunched and his gaze fixed on a point on the table, still trying desperately to find a way to help his dad. There had to be something. There was no way that they would take charity, but maybe that was the only way. _Don't be stupid_, he told himself, _they would get through this...right?_ But then again, he couldn't get a job with school and supernatural shit happening everyday. Maybe during school breaks he could find someth-

“You good?”, Scott asked him and interrupted his thoughts.

“Yeah, no I am fine, just tired”, Stiles said and forced a smile on his face. It didn't reach his eyes though. But Scott just nodded and got back to the conversation. He thought that it was just the stress of the upcoming exams and didn't ask further.

And even if he would, Stiles would just say “no, it's okay, I am fine” as always, because nowadays that was his answer to anything.

He just got so used to always saying it, that he never questioned if it was actually true.

**3**

“Oh my god, that was close”, Lydia breathed and they all chuckled nervously. Just a second ago they had defeated a wave of hunters raiding their forest.

The hunters had been experienced in fighting techniques, so it had been a tough fight. Stiles had been pushed around a lot and had some bruises here and there. At one point he had sprained his ankle when he had been jumping out of the way. In the heat of the moment he hadn't realised it, but now that it was all over it started to hurt. He couldn't really put weight on it, so it caused him to have a little limp, but he walked through it when he joined the others. Derek and Scott still had dried blood flakes here and there but all their wounds had already healed.

Scott walked over to Stiles and gave him a high five.

“Good job with that last hunter! You saved my ass again”, Scott laughed and Stiles joined him.

“Just because it _needed_ to be saved!”, Stiles punched him in the arm.

“Ow!”

“Guys, stop that, we are done fighting for today”, Lydia said with a smile and hugged them both. She motioned Derek to join them.

“Oh no, I don't hug”, Derek said, but it was no use, he was pulled into the group hug anyway.

“You do now”, Lydia smiled and they all stayed like that for a while. Happy to have survived again.

Derek broke the hug first and they all just stood around and took some deep breaths.

“Oh my god, I need to go home and sleep for a week”, Lydia broke the silence first.

“That sounds _perfect_!”, Stiles said and walked over to picked up his bag, which was still laying next to one of the hunter's bodies. When he bent down he put weight on the wrong foot and hot pain shot through his leg. He tried to hide a grunt. Stiles stood up straight again and tried to put the bag over his shoulder, but swayed and put weight on his bad foot again. He flinched and swore under his breath. Scott and Lydia were already walking away from the site, but Derek noticed.

“Here, let me help you with that”, he said.

“Oh no, I got it”, Stiles waved his hand at him.

“You sure? I don't min-”

“Derek, I said I got it”, Stiles forced a smile on his face. Derek thought about insisting on helping him, because he clearly noticed Stiles' pain, but saw the look on Stiles' face. This here wasn't the right time or place.

“I am not weak or anything”, Stiles added and laughed. It was meant as a joke but he secretely meant it.

“No, I know that Stiles I ju-”, Derek started but Stiles was already walking towards Lydia and Stiles.

“You coming?”, he said with a smile and turned around to look at Derek. Walking backwards hurt even more and he quickly turned around to hide his scrunched up face. _Fuck_, he thought, but he gritted his teeth. He knew that the others wouldn't think of him any less if he admitted once in a while what he was really feeling, but something was always stopping him. So he said nothing and pushed through. Like he always did.

**4**

When Stiles woke up he scrunched his brows and held his head. A throbbing pain in his head was making him let out a groan. He rolled around and looked at his phone. It was 2:14 AM. Great. He tried falling back asleep, but then his stomach started to hurt, too. Stiles forced himself into a sitting position and closed his eyes again. He laid his head in his hands and just breathed. Suddenly he felt the urge to throw up. This wasn't just the normal discomfort of having not slept for days. This was something different.

“Ugh come on”, he groaned.

He was sick. He thought that the last nights were he coulnd't sleep where just because he was feeling on edge again, but apparently it had been just the beginning. Stiles got up and shuffled to the bathroom. He looked around, but couldn't find any things for stomach ache. He had to get to the pharmacy after school to grab something.

“Damn it!”

Another painful ache pierced through his stomach and he subconciously rubbed it with his hand. Since he had woken up that early from the pain he still had some time to kill before school. So five minutes later he was back laying in bed with a hot-water bottle closely hugged to his stomach. It didn't really help a lot with the pain itself, but at least it made him feel nice and warm.

His alarm blared through the air and Stiles groaned when he opened his eyes for the second time. He hadn't managed to fall asleep again. He sleepily put away the now cold hot-water bottle and dragged himself into a sitting position. Almost immediately he felt the urge to throw up and a hand shot to his stomach. His head wasn't feeling much better. He just wanted to stay in bed, but school was kind of important so he pulled himself upright.

When Stiles got to school the ache was still there and didn't lose in intensity. Every now and then he bit down a groan and it was like hot pain was shooting through his stomach in irregular intervals. Luckily he had maths and physics in the morning, so he had to pay attention and couldn't focus too much on the pain.

At lunch they were sitting all together. Stiles just talked to Scott about the next lacrosse practise when another painful ache shot through his body. He subconciously scrunched up his brows and held his stomach.

Lydia sat across the table and shot him a glance. _You okay?_ it seemed to imply. Stiles nodded and gave her a thumbs up. He turned around and continued the conversation with Scott. The entire day the pain didn't go away. He wanted nothing more than to crawl back to bed, sadly he couldn't. As soon as the schoolbell rang he walked fastly to the Jeep, already dreaming about another hot-water bottle, when Lydia called him.

“Uhm...Stiles?”

Stiles turned around, a questioned look on his face.

“....yes?”

“Did you forget about our research session at the library?”

“Oh shoot”, Stiles groaned and closed his eyes. He _did_ forget about that thing.

“.....no?”, he said and Lydia laughed. She walked over, took his hand and pulled him after her. Stiles still felt miserable, but when he saw Derek waiting around the corner his heart beat a little faster. He couldn't wait for some banter to distract him from the pain in his stomach.

Derek saw Stiles and he tried to hide a smile. He was always happy when he saw Stiles But something was different about Stiles. The way he held his body was wrong, he walked rather crookedly. And then he saw Stiles' brows scrunch up and his hand subconciously held his stomach for just a second, but Derek saw it nonetheless.

“Hey Derek, what's up?”, Stiles asked and Derek nodded at him.

“Not much, let's hope we finish this soon.”

“Amen to that”, Stiles chuckled.

When Stiles and Derek walked next to each other Derek's hand touched him and Stiles already felt a million times better. But then he noticed the warm feeling flowing through his veins. Derek was taking his pain.

Stiles looked up at him and shot him a thankful glance. Derek looked back and smiled. He nodded knowingly and then looked back straight ahead. They continued walking side by side to the library and with every step Stiles felt better and better.

He appreciated that Derek didn't want to know what happened. Derek never overstepped his boundaries and Stiles felt safe with Derek. Maybe he was the one he was going to open up to...when he was ready.

**5**

It was one of those days where nothing felt quite right for Stiles. He had these days sometimes. It felt like the world was spinning the wrong way and that nothing made sense. Like even the effort of getting out of bed was worthless. The weight of the world was on his shoulders and he wanted nothing than to lay in bed all day and just exist. Luckily he was out of school at noon already, Wednesday was his short day.

Stiles was laying in his bed with his laptop next to him. He had the covers pulled to his chin and was watching a video listlessly. He desperately needed some distraction and watching Netflix nonstop was the perfect choice. As soon as everything was quiet, his thoughts started to run crazy again, so right now he was on Episode 12 on _Friends _even though he had just started when he got home after school.

Stiles was never the one to ignore texts, but right now he wasn't in the mood for any human interaction. So when his phone made a sound and he contemplated not checking, but then realised that it might be another life-or-death situation. He reached for his phone and looked at his display to see a text from Scott.

_<I'm stuck with question 2 for math homework. Help!>_

Stiles sighed. Of course people needed something from him again. But today he really didn't feel like it. He went back to watching _Friends_, but not for long. Two minutes later, the next text came in.

_<Okay I have tried it again and I am lost... What is your result?>_

Stiles groaned and rolled his eyes. He knew that Scott didn't mean to annoy him, they often did their homework together, but right now everything felt dull. He wanted to see no one, speak to no one and do nothing today. A few more minutes past and then the phone rang.

“Oh come on”, Stiles whispered to himself and picked up his phone.

It was Scott.

Stiles looked at it for a few seconds but then sighed. He knew there was no point in ignoring Scott any further, he wasn't gonna stop. Scott was just gonna come over and Stiles didn't not feel ready for that. So he picked up the phone.

“Hey Scott, what's up?”, he tried to make his voice sound happier.

“Stiles, hi. You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine, what's up?”

“I wrote you a few messages...you didn't get them?”, Scott sounded suspicious.

“Oh yeah sorry, I had my phone on silent, I was doing research”, maybe Scott noticed the lies, but Stiles didn't care, not today. He felt no need of opening up to Scott about the situation. It might have helped him, but he was too deep in the dark hole that was his life right now.

“So, what's up? Who is dead?”

“ME!”, Scott laughed, “I have been stuck at question 2 from the math homework, did you already do it?”

“Hold on, let me get my notebook”, Stiles said and got out of bed. He felt dizzy from that movement alone.

“What are you researching?”

“Oh, uhm... I thought I could read more about the uhm different types of foxes, you know? Like we know Kira is a kitsune, but maybe there are other types we need to be aware of. The Nogitsune definitely was a bitch...”

“Yeah, that sounds smart”, Scott said cautiously. He _had_ noticed the lies, Stiles wasn't okay today, but it wasn't his right to probe.

“Okay, let's see”, Stiles said and turned the pages of his notebook.

“Oh yeah, I have 4.2 pounds as a result, it's pretty straightforward, want to explain it to you?”

“Yes please”, Scott huffed out a laugh.

Stiles started explaining it to Scott and soon Scott understood what needed to be done. Stiles held a normal conversation the entire time, but felt like he was just running on autopilot. He felt empty inside, but tried to not let Scott know. He pushed through like he always did.

**+1**

Stiles was trying not to focus on the throbbing in his ankle. He had an ice pack laying on it, but every now and then a sharp pain shot through his food. On another race for their lifes he had tripped and then fallen down awfully. He figured that reading a book would help with some distraction and so he picked up his version of “_Dune_”. Soon he was getting lost in the story and forgot everything around him.

A knock on the door startled him and he looked up. What he didn't expect was Derek coming through the door.

“Oh hey, what are you-”, but Stiles didn't come further because when he got up from the bed the ice pack fell down and the sound boomed through the air.

Stiles hastily picked it up and wanted to put it on his night stand, but stopped in his motion. Shit. There were other used cool packs, bandages and pain killers all piled up on each other. Stiles' mind went on overdrive and he just laid the cool packs with the others. He knew that the damage was done now, so he used his best strategy: Blabbering.

“So, what are you doing here? I was just about to watch a movie, maybe make some popcorn, you want some? Or do you need help with research, or-”, he stopped talking when Derek didn't react.

Derek was still standing in the doorway with the door in his hand and his brows scrunched up in confusion. Stiles saw him slowly piecing everything together and braced himself for Derek's reaction.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about the Werejaguar that's been running around our woods but that's not important right now”, Derek got lost in his words, “are you okay?”

Immediately Stiles answered, but he was looking for the right words.

“Yeah, no I am good, it's just a...a small bruise I had when I...uhm...ran into the bed. And my ankle still hurt from that, because that's...where it hit the uhm the bed.”

Derek looked at him with his eyebrows raised. He scoffed.

“Stiles”, he just said.

“What?”

Derek just waited. He knew that Stiles didn't really like to talk about him and his weaknesses, but right now Derek didn't care. Stiles realised that and sighed.

“Yeah well...no...I am not okay...but it's fine, really.”, he said and looked down at the floor._ It's not like this is the first time I am going through this alone_ he said to himself.

Since he put no pressure on his bad foot every now and then he swayed a bit, but after this talk he actually sat back down at the edge of the bed. He looked defeated and worn out.

“So, you said something about research?”

“Stiles”, Derek just said again.

Stiles looked at Derek through his lashes. He didn't want the attention, but he also felt like Derek wouldn't think of him as weak. Stiles trusted him.

“You are clearly not fine, let me look at that”, Derek approached him.

“No, Derek seriously, it's nothing”, Stiles started but then Derek just raised his eyebrows at him again and Stiles sighed. Derek could be pretty persuasive.

“Fine.”

Stiles moved further up his bed and Derek began inspecting his ankle. It was a bit swollen and red and the throbbing was more prominent now that the ice pack was gone.

“Derek, it's not like it's the first time I got hurt, seriously I-”

“Shut up”, Derek said with a smile and took a bandage off the bedside table.

“Got any ointment?”

“Second drawer”, Stiles answered. He realised that arguing was pointless. And to be honest, it felt nice to be cared for.

Derek continued working in silence and Stiles just watched him with a small smile on his lips. Who knew that the broodiest werewolf would make Stiles feel whole again. At least for a little while.


End file.
